Fess up.
Empty-handed, palms face down on the table.
It won’t get louder unless you let it.

Chest up.

Breathe in the smell of smoke you’ve spread.
Do you feel like harming yourself?

Will you let it?

Let nothing consume you.
Don’t let your empty hands ruin you,
Until you’ve something to show for it.

Untether it.

Feel yourself shatter to pieces.
DNA into grain, skin turns to gray.
Choke on the white noise in your chest until you’ve given into it.

Until you can’t.

feeling unkempt
left me untethered, you caught the next cab
south of any air
ill keep close ithaca, warm me from the inside, heading anywhere
be too loud for me
perpetually alone
keep me far from anything ive not learned i need to know

and earthly ties they’ll ask for closure
while the bed pulls you closer
feeling unkempt
choked me breathless, i climbed an unsteady ladder, running out of air
ill be dumb for you, bliss
wrap me in illusion
evidently ill be consequently blind for you
perpetually forgone
any sense of known
tell me again, call me your fool
feeling unkempt

ill forget me again for you.

therapy feels harder
permanence feels present in the birthday candles im forced to blow out
my door pushed open
my priorities in shambles

my work key twists the latch in my soul and holds it there
i am what i do
so then how am i nothing?

hugs are asked for, harder
days feel shorter and my gas tank feels somewhat hotter
its all creeping up on me now
this is when you are supposed to feel something, right?
if i am what i do
i’m hoping at one point i’ll be you.

get out of my sleep baby
cut it out of me
summer is lost so
let me go
cut the care out baby
let it drain out of me
i dont care about faking hope

an empty brain
almost as empty as the road ahead
it feels a bit painful to stay so still
and think so hard of nothing

its not loneliness
not a feeling
no, this is objective
i AM alone

headlights pass my peripheral
the darkness is tainted
more ghostly
silent

dont do anything stupid
11:25pm
please?
11:26pm

are you tired yet?

there is no rhythm to my poems anymore
i've lost touch, lost the skill to manifest these thoughts
perhaps the ability to think
my thoughts have congealed, melted, turned my eyelids from red to pink

it is exhausting
feeling nothing without knowing of apathy
it is like drowning
but you just never sink

i want a movement, baby
i want pain and a heart on the side
letting things go is like watching myself die

living life is not living if it is all for the wait
i want to feel the sun on my bones
feel my soul for a change

when does it get better than this?
never knew myself to be so lazy, tired, stoic, stained
i want to be myself or whoever else for a day
i can't seem to shake this feeling again